


Listening to the Unheard Cry

by Dawnwind



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 22:46:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bodie and Doyle are called in to investigate a very politically sensitive crime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listening to the Unheard Cry

Listening to the Unheard Cry  
By  
Dawnwind

 

The diary lay on the blood stained shag pile rug, a poignant reminder of the young girl who hadn’t revealed the secret. Doyle leaned down to read the last entry. 

_I can’t live with what he’s doing any longer. It hurts too much. I’ve told him I’m telling mum._

“Bodie,” he called softly, quite aware that the girl’s mother was still in the vicinity. “Looks like she planned to expose him.”

“Bugger.” Bodie came in very close, standing with his back to the door. “A parent should never do that kind of thing to a young girl. Step-father or not.”

“We’ve got to talk to Cowley.” Doyle looked up into his partner’s very blue eyes. Just having Bodie by his side calmed the storm raging inside him. There were no two ways about it, this was an extremely volatile situation. The man in question was a member of Mrs Thatcher’s staff and above reproach according to those in power. How could two CI5 agents accuse him of something like this and expect to survive the fallout?

“Tuck that into your pocket quick-like,” Bodie said, barely moving his lips.

“What about dabs?” Doyle asked rhetorically, picking up the book with two fingers. He grabbed a blue silk scarf lying half under the edge of the bed ruffle and wrapped it around the book before sliding it into his inner jacket pocket. 

“There’ll be one set o’yours and—hopefully, the rest will be Suzanna’s, see? Bob’s your uncle,” Bodie answered tightly, putting out a hand to help Doyle climb to his feet. “Very well could be some of his prints, as well.”

“Optimist,” Doyle hissed, wishing he could snatch some of that rare hope and bottle it. “Mrs Landon,” he called out.

The woman turned, her grief written large on her face. Mercy Landon had been all dolled up for a fancy shindig hosted by the PM herself when she’d discovered her daughter’s lifeless body. The mascara she’d undoubtedly applied so carefully an hour earlier had run in black rivulets down her cheeks with her tears. Her expensively styled hair was hanging in long tangles and the lovely aqua sequined dress was covered in blood.

“Y-yes?” she answered faintly, her lower lip trembling. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from staring at the sheet draped body lying against the pink and purple flowered wall. 

“Do you have any idea where Mr Landon might be?” Doyle asked politely, barely able to look into her face because her pain was such a physical presence. The diary bumped against his hipbone from inside his pocket.

“He was supposed to m-meet me there—at the soiree.” Mercy shook her head. “But when I called the hostess to say that—“

“Mum?” A plaintive voice calling from downstairs galvanised her and she turned, running to the stairs.

“Mrs Landon!” Her personal secretary trotted after her.

Doyle wished he could remember the secretary’s name. It was a complete blank in his brain, and not just because he and Bodie had drunk two beers at their local before Cowley called them in. Asked for Doyle specifically. 

This entire incident was a horror show. He’d known Sheffield Landon, had first met the man when he was still a copper and Landon a junior barrister. They’d never been friends, even had more than one row over differing opinions about suspects Doyle charged with crimes and Landon got off. He’d never got a whiff that Landon was such scum to be banging his own stepdaughter.

“Miss Fiori!” Bodie shouted with authority.

Fiori stopped, tottering on the first step before she grabbed the banister and gained her balance. “What?” she retorted, clearly trying to make sense of a chaotic version of her normal life.

“We need background, some understanding of what occurred.” Bodie took her elbow, steering her toward a sitting room to the left of Suzanna’s bedroom. 

Doyle entered first, visually searching the room for any dangers. It was a pretty place with pale green upholstery and gold accents; obviously somewhere mother and daughters could talk or watch the telly. There were framed photographs on the walls of the family. Doyle found himself staring at one: Mercy had her hair pulled back in a red silk scarf, and the two giggling girls sat next to her on a grassy hill, each wearing a blue silk scarf over long brown curls. 

Coroner wagon attendants came up the steps with a stretcher to take the body out and Miss Fiori’s face went pale. She held out a hand as if she wanted to say something to the men, but pursed her lips instead. Once in the sitting room, she sank onto an antique sofa. Doyle sat next to her and Bodie in a Louis fourteenth chair opposite.

“The Landons got married a year ago, yeah?” she said, searching their faces as if looking for answers. “Mercy had been one of his clerks before that. But when he got the position in the PM’s office, they moved to this big house. Suzanna was unhappy from the start. Little Savannah was difficult—hated her new school, caused all sorts of problems, but Suzanna just seemed to fade away to nothing.”

“Did she complain about her step-father?” Doyle asked. “Give you any reason to suspect that he’d…?”

She shook her head quickly, pushing a lock of pale blond hair behind one ear. “Nothing of the sort—not until t-today. She was—depressed, I suppose. Her mum was tha’ worried, but Suzanna weren’t the sort to complain like her sister. She went to school and went to her room, all day, ever’day. I hadn’t known her well before I came to work here, but I got the impression she’d been a lively girl. Keen on sport, especially netball.”

“So no-one saw that Sheffield Landon was abusing his stepdaughter?” Bodie accused. “Or that he’d push her so far she’d slit her wrists with a knife-- take her own life?”

Miss Fiori sucked in a breath and dissolved into tears. “I don’t know!”

“Ma’am?” A blue uniformed officer ducked his head into the room. “Mrs Landon would like you to go with her and the younger daughter. They’ll be driving to her sister’s home,” he added to Bodie and Doyle.

“Yeah, ta.” Miss Fiori knuckled tears off her cheeks, hiccupping slightly. 

Doyle grabbed a handful of tissues from a gold filigreed box on an end table and thrust them into her hand. “Once Mrs Landon is settled, we’ll be by to get her statement,” he said gently. “We’ll try to sort this matter out as swiftly as possible.”

“I’ll tell her.” She stood, drying her eyes. Tugging her green checked skirt into order, she followed the constable out.

“Bloody hell. That poor girl. When I was growing up--” Bodie stood in the middle of the room holding out his arms as if he could push against the walls. “I thought that the wealthy had it all, had money, power… that just a bit of money would make me and my gran happy. To live in a place like this…”

“Landon was a rotter from the first.” Doyle got to his feet, feeling the beers he’d had. Would he have been clearer headed without the drink? Too late now. “But do you want to hear a joke?”

“Not sure.” Bodie raised his eyebrow.

“I always thought he was gay. Never saw him with a woman.” Doyle rubbed the satiny finish on the arm of the couch with the pad of his thumb. “Once when I was patrolling, I caught sight of him going into a men’s club that was known not to be your father’s peer’s sort of establishment, if you get my meaning.”

Bodie snorted. “You ever go there on your own?”

“I’d passed through the doors on occasion, just for a pint. Didn’t sample the wares.” Doyle’s insides unknotted just a mite. They’d get through this together, holding each other up with even the most trivial of quips. “So when I heard Landon married his clerk, I thought, yeah—marriage of convenience to keep the press off his back.”

“But that wasn’t his reasoning. Quite probably, he had his sights on Suzanna all along.” Bodie frowned, reaching out to pull Doyle to him. He kicked the sitting room door closed and kissed Doyle on the temple.

Inclining his head so that he could catch Bodie’s lips, Doyle kissed him. “We should go there, to the club. Can’t be that many people know he used to frequent the place.” He had to avenge this girl, had to right the wrong Sheffield Landon had caused. 

“We’ll find him, and I’ll stand back, let you beat the crap out of him,” Bodie promised. “For Suzanna’s sake.”

FIN


End file.
